CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK BY MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES

St. Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the
Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to
Bagneres-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution,
and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In
the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place--I can
hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand
inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from
Toulouse to see St. Bertrand's Church, and had left two friends, who
were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse,
under promise to join him on the following morning. Half an hour at the
church would satisfy _them_, and all three could then pursue their
journey in the direction of Auch. But our Englishman had come early on
the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a note-book and to
use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and
photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the
little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this design
satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church
for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation,
inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat
brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came,
the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. It
was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man
that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other
church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive, or rather hunted
and oppressed, air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind
him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a
continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to
find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew
whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one
oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband.
The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea;
but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable
persecutor even than a termagant wife.

However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep
in his note-book and too busy with his camera to give more than an
occasional glance to the sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he
found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the
wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. Dennistoun became
rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the
old man from his _dejeuner_, that he was regarded as likely to make away
with St. Bertrand's ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed crocodile
that hangs over the font, began to torment him.

"Won't you go home?" he said at last; "I'm quite well able to finish my
notes alone; you can lock me in if you like. I shall want at least two
hours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn't it?"

"Good heavens!" said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw
into a state of unaccountable terror, "such a thing cannot be thought of
for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no; two hours,
three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at
all cold, with many thanks to monsieur."

"Very well, my little man," quoth Dennistoun to himself: "you have been
warned, and you must take the consequences."

Before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous
dilapidated organ, the choir-screen of Bishop John de Mauleon, the
remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber,
had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at
Dennistoun's heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had
been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a
large empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they were
sometimes.

"Once," Dennistoun said to me, "I could have sworn I heard a thin
metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring
glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. 'It is he--that is--it
is no one; the door is locked,' was all he said, and we looked at each
other for a full minute."

Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was examining
a large dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series
illustrating the miracles of St. Bertrand. The composition of the
picture is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below,
which runs thus:

          "Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem
          diabolus diu volebat strangulare." (How St.
          Bertrand delivered a man whom the Devil long
          sought to strangle.)

Dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular
remark of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old
man on his knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in
agony, his hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks.
Dennistoun naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the question
would not away from him, "Why should a daub of this kind affect any one
so strongly?" He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to
the reason of the strange look that had been puzzling him all the day:
the man must be monomaniac; but what was his monomania?

It was nearly five o'clock; the short day was drawing in, and the church
began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises--the muffled
footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all
day--seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently
quickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent.

The sacristan began for the first time to show signs of hurry and
impatience. He heaved a sigh of relief when camera and note-book were
finally packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned Dennistoun to
the western door of the church, under the tower. It was time to ring the
Angelus. A few pulls at the reluctant rope, and the great bell
Bertrande, high in the tower, began to speak, and swung her voice up
among the pines and down to the valleys, loud with mountain-streams,
calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and repeat the
salutation of the angel to her whom he called Blessed among women. With
that a profound quiet seemed to fall for the first time that day upon
the little town, and Dennistoun and the sacristan went out of the
church.

On the doorstep they fell into conversation.

"Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir-books in the
sacristy."

"Undoubtedly. I was going to ask you if there were a library in the
town."

"No, monsieur; perhaps there used to be one belonging to the Chapter,
but it is now such a small place----" Here came a strange pause of
irresolution, as it seemed; then, with a sort of plunge, he went on:
"But if monsieur is _amateur des vieux livres_, I have at home something
that might interest him. It is not a hundred yards."

At once all Dennistoun's cherished dreams of finding priceless
manuscripts in untrodden corners of France flashed up, to die down again
the next moment. It was probably a stupid missal of Plantin's printing,
about 1580. Where was the likelihood that a place so near Toulouse would
not have been ransacked long ago by collectors? However, it would be
foolish not to go; he would reproach himself for ever after if he
refused. So they set off. On the way the curious irresolution and sudden
determination of the sacristan recurred to Dennistoun, and he wondered
in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to be
made away with as a supposed rich Englishman. He contrived, therefore,
to begin talking with his guide, and to drag in, in a rather clumsy
fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to join him early the
next morning. To his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the
sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that oppressed him.

"That is well," he said quite brightly--"that is very well. Monsieur
will travel in company with his friends; they will be always near him.
It is a good thing to travel thus in company--sometimes."

The last word appeared to be added as an afterthought, and to bring with
it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man.

They were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its
neighbors, stone-built, with a shield carved over the door, the shield
of Alberic de Mauleon, a collateral descendant, Dennistoun tells me, of
Bishop John de Mauleon. This Alberic was a Canon of Comminges from 1680
to 1701. The upper windows of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole
place bore, as does the rest of Comminges, the aspect of decaying age.

Arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment.

"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps, after all, monsieur has not the time?"

"Not at all--lots of time--nothing to do till to-morrow. Let us see what
it is you have got."

The door was opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far
younger than the sacristan's, but bearing something of the same
distressing look: only here it seemed to be the mark, not so much of
fear for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another.
Plainly, the owner of the face was the sacristan's daughter; and, but
for the expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough. She
brightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an
able-bodied stranger. A few remarks passed between father and daughter,
of which Dennistoun only caught these words, said by the sacristan, "He
was laughing in the church," words which were answered only by a look of
terror from the girl.

But in another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a
small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by a
wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth. Something of the character
of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached
almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural
colors, the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and
solidity, and when a lamp had been brought, and chairs set, the
sacristan went to this chest, and produced therefrom, with growing
excitement and nervousness, as Dennistoun thought, a large book wrapped
in a white cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red
thread. Even before the wrapping had been removed, Dennistoun began to
be interested by the size and shape of the volume. "Too large for a
missal," he thought, "and not the shape of an antiphoner; perhaps it may
be something good, after all." The next moment the book was open, and
Dennistoun felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good.
Before him lay a large folio, bound, perhaps, late in the seventeenth
century, with the arms of Canon Alberic de Mauleon stamped in gold on
the sides. There may have been a hundred and fifty leaves of paper in
the book, and on almost every one of them was fastened a leaf from an
illuminated manuscript. Such a collection Dennistoun had hardly dreamed
of in his wildest moments. Here were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis,
illustrated with pictures, which could not be later than 700 A.D.
Further on was a complete set of pictures from a psalter, of English
execution, of the very finest kind that the thirteenth century could
produce; and, perhaps best of all, there were twenty leaves of uncial
writing in Latin, which, as a few words seen here and there told him at
once, must belong to some very early unknown patristic treatise. Could
it possibly be a fragment of the copy of Papias "On the Words of Our
Lord," which was known to have existed as late as the twelfth century at
Nimes?[A] In any case, his mind was made up; that book must return to
Cambridge with him, even if he had to draw the whole of his balance from
the bank and stay at St. Bertrand till the money came. He glanced up at
the sacristan to see if his face yielded any hint that the book was for
sale. The sacristan was pale, and his lips were working.

"If monsieur will turn on to the end," he said.

So monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf;
and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper, of much
more recent date than anything he had yet seen, which puzzled him
considerably. They must be contemporary, he decided, with the
unprincipled Canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the Chapter
library of St. Bertrand to form this priceless scrapbook. On the first
of the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly
recognizable by a person who knew the ground, of the south aisle and
cloisters of St. Bertrand's. There were curious signs looking like
planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words in the corners; and in the
northwest angle of the cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below
the plan were some lines of writing in Latin, which ran thus:

          "Responsa 12^{mi} Dec. 1694. Interrogatum est:
          Inveniamne? Responsum est: Invenies. Fiamne dives?
          Fies. Vivamne invidendus? Vives. Moriarne in lecto
          meo? Ita." (Answers of the 12th of December, 1694.
          It was asked: Shall I find it? Answer: Thou shalt.
          Shall I become rich? Thou wilt. Shall I live an
          object of envy? Thou wilt. Shall I die in my bed?
          Thou wilt.)

"A good specimen of the treasure-hunter's record--quite reminds one of
Mr. Minor-Canon Quatremain in 'Old St. Paul's,'" was Dennistoun's
comment, and he turned the leaf.

What he then saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more than he
could have conceived any drawing or picture capable of impressing him.
And, though the drawing he saw is no longer in existence, there is a
photograph of it (which I possess) which fully bears out that statement.
The picture in question was a sepia drawing at the end of the
seventeenth century, representing, one would say at first sight, a
Biblical scene; for the architecture (the picture represented an
interior) and the figures had that semi-classical flavor about them
which the artists of two hundred years ago thought appropriate to
illustrations of the Bible. On the right was a king on his throne, the
throne elevated on twelve steps, a canopy overhead, soldiers on either
side--evidently King Solomon. He was bending forward with outstretched
scepter, in attitude of command; his face expressed horror and disgust,
yet there was in it also the mark of imperious command and confident
power. The left half of the picture was the strangest, however. The
interest plainly centered there. On the pavement before the throne were
grouped four soldiers, surrounding a crouching figure which must be
described in a moment. A fifth soldier lay dead on the pavement, his
neck distorted, and his eyeballs starting from his head. The four
surrounding guards were looking at the King. In their faces the
sentiment of horror was intensified; they seemed, in fact, only
restrained from flight by their implicit trust in their master. All this
terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in their midst.
I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression which this
figure makes upon any one who looks at it. I recollect once showing the
photograph of the drawing to a lecturer on morphology--a person of, I
was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of mind. He
absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening, and he told
me afterwards that for many nights he had not dared to put out his light
before going to sleep. However, the main traits of the figure I can at
least indicate. At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black
hair; presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful
thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like
wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with
long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. The eyes, touched in with a
burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were fixed upon the
throned king with a look of beast-like hate. Imagine one of the awful
bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form, and
endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some
faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy. One
remark is universally made by those to whom I have shown the picture:
"It was drawn from the life."

As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided,
Dennistoun stole a look at his hosts. The sacristan's hands were pressed
upon his eyes; his daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, was
telling her beads feverishly.

At last the question was asked, "Is this book for sale?"

There was the same hesitation, the same plunge of determination, that he
had noticed before, and then came the welcome answer, "If monsieur
pleases."

"How much do you ask for it?"

"I will take two hundred and fifty francs."

This was confounding. Even a collector's conscience is sometimes
stirred, and Dennistoun's conscience was tenderer than a collector's.

"My good man!" he said again and again, "your book is worth far more
than two hundred and fifty francs, I assure you--far more."

But the answer did not vary: "I will take two hundred and fifty francs,
not more."

There was really no possibility of refusing such a chance. The money was
paid, the receipt signed, a glass of wine drunk over the transaction,
and then the sacristan seemed to become a new man. He stood upright, he
ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him, he actually laughed
or tried to laugh. Dennistoun rose to go.

"I shall have the honor of accompanying monsieur to his hotel?" said the
sacristan.

"Oh no, thanks! it isn't a hundred yards. I know the way perfectly, and
there is a moon."

The offer was pressed three or four times, and refused as often.

"Then, monsieur will summon me if--if he finds occasion; he will keep
the middle of the road, the sides are so rough."

"Certainly, certainly," said Dennistoun, who was impatient to examine
his prize by himself; and he stepped out into the passage with his book
under his arm.

Here he was met by the daughter; she, it appeared, was anxious to do a
little business on her own account; perhaps, like Gehazi, to "take
somewhat" from the foreigner whom her father had spared.

"A silver crucifix and chain for the neck; monsieur would perhaps be
good enough to accept it?"

Well, really, Dennistoun hadn't much use for these things. What did
mademoiselle want for it?

"Nothing--nothing in the world. Monsieur is more than welcome to it."

The tone in which this and much more was said was unmistakably genuine,
so that Dennistoun was reduced to profuse thanks, and submitted to have
the chain put round his neck. It really seemed as if he had rendered the
father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to repay. As
he set off with his book they stood at the door looking after him, and
they were still looking when he waved them a last good-night from the
steps of the Chapeau Rouge.

Dinner was over, and Dennistoun was in his bedroom, shut up alone with
his acquisition. The landlady had manifested a particular interest in
him since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and
bought an old book from him. He thought, too, that he had heard a
hurried dialogue between her and the said sacristan in the passage
outside the _salle a manger_; some words to the effect that "Pierre and
Bertrand would be sleeping in the house" had closed the conversation.

At this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over
him--nervous reaction, perhaps, after the delight of his discovery.
Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was some one
behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the
wall. All this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the
obvious value of the collection he had acquired. And now, as I said, he
was alone in his bedroom, taking stock of Canon Alberic's treasures, in
which every moment revealed something more charming.

"Bless Canon Alberic!" said Dennistoun, who had an inveterate habit of
talking to himself. "I wonder where he is now? Dear me! I wish that
landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner; it makes one
feel as if there was some one dead in the house. Half a pipe more, did
you say? I think perhaps you are right. I wonder what that crucifix is
that the young woman insisted on giving me? Last century, I suppose.
Yes, probably. It is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one's
neck--just too heavy. Most likely her father had been wearing it for
years. I think I might give it a clean up before I put it away."

He had taken the crucifix off, and laid it on the table, when his
attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his
left elbow. Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his
brain with their own incalculable quickness.

"A penwiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black. A
large spider? I trust to goodness not--no. Good God! a hand like the
hand in that picture!"

In another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin,
covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse
black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from
the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, gray,
horny and wrinkled.

He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at
his heart. The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to
a standing posture behind his seat, its right hand crooked above his
scalp. There was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair
covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin--what can I call
it?--shallow, like a beast's; teeth showed behind the black lips; there
was no nose; the eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils
showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy
life which shone there, were the most horrifying feature in the whole
vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them--intelligence beyond
that of a beast, below that of a man.

The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennistoun were the intensest
physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. What did he do?
What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said,
but he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver
crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part of
the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in hideous
pain.

Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men, who rushed in,
saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed
out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with him
that night, and his two friends were at St. Bertrand by nine o'clock
next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost
himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though not
until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan.

Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretense, and
had listened with the deepest interest to the story retailed by the
landlady. He showed no surprise.

"It is he--it is he! I have seen him myself," was his only comment; and
to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed: "Deux fois je l'ai vu;
mille fois je l'ai senti." He would tell them nothing of the provenance
of the book, nor any details of his experiences. "I shall soon sleep,
and my rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me?" he said.[B]

We shall never know what he or Canon Alberic de Mauleon suffered. At the
back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may be
supposed to throw light on the situation:

            "Contradictio Salomonis cum demonio nocturno.
                  Albericus de Mauleone delineavit.
               V. Deus in adiutorium. Ps. Qui habitat.
    Sancte Bertrande, demoniorum effugator, intercede pro me miserrimo.
          Primum uidi nocte 12^{mi} Dec. 1694: uidebo mox ultimum.
      Peccaui et passus sum, plura adhuc passurus. Dec. 29, 1701."[C]

I have never quite understood what was Dennistoun's view of the events
I have narrated. He quoted to me once a test from Ecclesiasticus: "Some
spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay
on sore strokes." On another occasion he said: "Isaiah was a very
sensible man; doesn't he say something about night monsters living in
the ruins of Babylon? These things are rather beyond us at present."

Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with
it. We had been, last year, to Comminges, to see Canon Alberic's tomb.
It is a great marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large wig
and soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw
Dennistoun talking for some time with the Vicar of St. Bertrand's, and
as we drove away he said to me: "I hope it isn't wrong: you know I am a
Presbyterian--but I--I believe there will be 'saying of Mass and singing
of dirges' for Alberic de Mauleon's rest." Then he added, with a touch
of the Northern British in his tone, "I had no notion they came so
dear."

       *       *       *       *       *

The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge. The drawing was
photographed and then burnt by Dennistoun on the day when he left
Comminges on the occasion of his first visit.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of
that work, if not of that actual copy of it.

[B] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St.
Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father's
"obsession."

[C] _I.e._, The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by
Alberic de Mauleon. _Versicle._ O Lord, make haste to help me. _Psalm._
Whoso dwelleth (xci.).

Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy.
I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall see it for
the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet.
Dec. 29, 1701.

The "Gallia Christiana" gives the date of the Canon's death as December
31, 1701, "in bed, of a sudden seizure." Details of this kind are not
common in the great work of the Sammarthani.

Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe

     And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the

     mystery of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will

     pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not

     yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only

     through the weakness of his feeble will.--_Joseph Glanvill._

I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I

first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since

elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or, perhaps, I

cannot _now_ bring these points to mind, because, in truth, the

character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast

of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low

musical language, made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and

stealthily progressive, that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I

believe that I met her first and most frequently in some large, old,

decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family--I have surely heard her

speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date cannot be doubted. Ligeia!

Ligeia! Buried in studies of a nature more than all else adapted to

deaden impressions of the outward world, it is by that sweet word

alone--by Ligeia--that I bring before mine eyes in fancy the image of

her who is no more. And now, while I write, a recollection flashes upon

me that I have _never known_ the paternal name of her who was my friend

and my bethrothed, and who became the partner of my studies, and finally

the wife of my bosom. Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligeia?

or was it a test of my strength of affection, that I should institute no

inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a caprice of my own--a

wildly romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion?

I but indistinctly recall the fact itself--what wonder that I have

utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it?

And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled _Romance_--if ever

she, the wan misty-winged _Ashtophet_ of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as

they tell, over marriages ill-omened, then most surely she presided over

mine.

There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory fails me not. It

is the _person_ of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat

slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain

attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease of her demeanor, or the

incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came

and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into

my closed study, save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she

placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden

ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream--an airy and

spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which

hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her

features were not of that regular mold which we have been falsely taught

to worship in the classical labors of the heathen. "There is no exquisite

beauty," says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the forms and

_genera_ of beauty, "without some _strangeness_ in the proportion."

Yet, although I saw that the features of Ligeia were not of a classic

regularity--although I perceived that her loveliness was indeed

"exquisite," and felt that there was much of "strangeness" pervading it,

yet I have tried in vain to detect the irregularity and to trace home my

own perception of "the strange." I examined the contour of the lofty and

pale forehead--it was faultless--how cold indeed that word when applied

to a majesty so divine!--the skin rivaling the purest ivory, the

commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above

the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant, and

naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric

epithet, "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines of the

nose--and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I

beheld a similar perfection. There were the same luxurious smoothness of

surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the

same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded

the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things heavenly--the

magnificent turn of the short upper lip--the soft, voluptuous slumber of

the under--the dimples which sported, and the color which spoke--the

teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy almost startling, every ray of

the holy light which fell upon them in her serene and placid yet most

exultingly radiant of all smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the

chin--and, here, too, I found the gentleness of breadth, the softness

and the majesty, the fullness and the spirituality, of the Greek--the

contour which the god Apollo revealed but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the

son of the Athenian. And then I peered into the large eyes of Ligeia.

For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It might have been,

too, that in these eyes of my beloved lay the secret to which Lord

Verulam alludes. They were, I must believe, far larger than the ordinary

eyes of our own race. They were even fuller than the fullest of the

gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nourjahad. Yet it was only at

intervals--in moments of intense excitement--that this peculiarity

became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at such moments was

her beauty--in my heated fancy thus it appeared perhaps--the beauty of

beings either above or apart from the earth--the beauty of the fabulous

Houri of the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black,

and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows,

slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint. The "strangeness,"

however, which I found in the eyes was of a nature distinct from the

formation, or the color, or the brilliancy of the features, and must,

after all, be referred to the _expression_. Ah, word of no meaning!

behind whose vast latitude of mere sound we intrench our ignorance of so

much of the spiritual. The expression of the eyes of Ligeia! How for

long hours have I pondered upon it! How have I, through the whole of a

midsummer night, struggled to fathom it! What was it--that something

more profound than the well of Democritus--which lay far within the

pupils of my beloved? What _was_ it? I was possessed with a passion to

discover. Those eyes! those large, those shining, those divine orbs!

they became to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest of

astrologers.

There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of the

science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the fact--never, I

believe, noticed in the schools--than in our endeavors to recall to

memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves _upon the very

verge_ of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember. And

thus how frequently, in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia's eyes, have I

felt approaching the full knowledge of their expression--felt it

approaching--yet not quite be mine--and so at length entirely depart!

And (strange, oh, strangest mystery of all!) I found, in the commonest

objects of the universe, a circle of analogies to that expression. I

mean to say that, subsequently to the period when Ligeia's beauty passed

into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from many

existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt always

around, within me, by her large and luminous orbs. Yet not the more

could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or even steadily view it. I

recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey of a rapidly

growing vine--in the contemplation of a moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis,

a stream of running water. I have felt it in the ocean--in the falling

of a meteor. I have felt it in the glances of unusually aged people. And

there are one or two stars in heaven (one especially, a star of the

sixth magnitude, double and changeable, to be found near the large star

in Lyra) in a telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the

feeling. I have been filled with it by certain sounds from stringed

instruments, and not unfrequently by passages from books. Among

innumerable other instances, I well remember something in a volume of

Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps merely from its quaintness--who shall

say?) never failed to inspire me with the sentiment: "And the will

therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will,

with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by

nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto

death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."

Length of years and subsequent reflection have enabled me to trace,

indeed, some remote connection between this passage in the English

moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An _intensity_ in

thought, action, or speech was possibly, in her, a result, or at least

an index, of that gigantic volition which, during our long intercourse,

failed to give other and more immediate evidence of its existence. Of

all the women whom I have ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the

ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the tumultuous

vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate,

save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so

delighted and appalled me,--by the almost magical melody, modulation,

distinctness, and placidity of her very low voice,--and by the fierce

energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of

utterance) of the wild words which she habitually uttered.

I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense--such as I have

never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she deeply

proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in regard to the

modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her at fault. Indeed upon

any theme of the most admired because simply the most abstruse of the

boasted erudition of the Academy, have I _ever_ found Ligeia at fault?

How singularly--how thrillingly, this one point in the nature of my wife

has forced itself, at this late period only, upon my attention! I said

her knowledge was such as I have never known in woman--but where

breathes the man who has traversed, and successfully, _all_ the wide

areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science? I saw not then what

I now clearly perceive that the acquisitions of Ligeia were gigantic,

were astounding; yet I was sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy

to resign myself, with a child-like confidence, to her guidance through

the chaotic world of metaphysical investigation at which I was most

busily occupied during the earlier years of our marriage. With how vast

a triumph--with how vivid a delight--with how much of all that is

ethereal in hope did I _feel_, as she bent over me in studies but little

sought--but less known,--that delicious vista by slow degrees expanding

before me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden path, I might at

length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too divinely precious not to

be forbidden.

How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after some

years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to themselves

and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child groping benighted. Her

presence, her readings alone, rendered vividly luminous the many

mysteries of the transcendentalism in which we were immersed. Wanting

the radiant luster of her eyes, letters, lambent and golden, grew duller

than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less and less frequently

upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia grew ill. The wild eyes blazed

with a too--too glorious effulgence; the pale fingers became of the

transparent waxen hue of the grave; and the blue veins upon the lofty

forehead swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the most gentle

emotion. I saw that she must die--and I struggled desperately in spirit

with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of the passionate wife were, to

my astonishment, even more energetic than my own. There had been much in

her stern nature to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would

have come without its terrors; but not so. Words are impotent to convey

any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled

with the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle. I would

have soothed--I would have reasoned; but in the intensity of her wild

desire for life--for life--_but_ for life--solace and reason were alike

the uttermost of folly. Yet not until the last instance, amid the most

convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was shaken the external

placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew more gentle--grew more

low--yet I would not wish to dwell upon the wild meaning of the quietly

uttered words. My brain reeled as I hearkened, entranced, to a melody

more than mortal--to assumptions and aspirations which mortality had

never before known.

That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have been

easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have reigned no

ordinary passion. But in death only was I fully impressed with the

strength of her affection. For long hours, detaining my hand, would she

pour out before me the overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate

devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by

such confessions?--how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal

of my beloved in the hour of my making them? But upon this subject I

cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in Ligeia's more than

womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily

bestowed, I at length, recognized the principle of her longing, with so

wildly earnest a desire, for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly

away. It is this wild longing--it is this eager vehemence of desire for

life--_but_ for life--that I have no power to portray--no utterance

capable of expressing.

At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning me,

peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses composed by

herself not many days before. I obeyed her. They were these:--

    Lo! 'tis a gala night

      Within the lonesome latter years!

    An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

      In veils, and drowned in tears,

    Sit in a theatre, to see

      A play of hopes and fears,

    While the orchestra breathes fitfully

      The music of the spheres.

    Mimes, in the form of God on high,

      Mutter and mumble low,

    And hither and thither fly;

      Mere puppets they, who come and go

    At bidding of vast formless things

      That shift the scenery to and fro,

    Flapping from out their condor wings

      Invisible Wo!

    That motley drama!--oh, be sure

      It shall not be forgot!

    With its Phantom chased for evermore

      By a crowd that seize it not,

    Through a circle that ever returneth in

      To the self-same spot;

    And much of Madness, and more of Sin

      And Horror, the soul of the plot!

    But see, amid the mimic rout,

      A crawling shape intrude!

    A blood-red thing that writhes from out

      The scenic solitude!

    It writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs

      The mimes become its food,

    And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs

      In human gore imbued.

    Out--out are the lights--out all:

      And over each quivering form,

    The curtain, a funeral pall,

      Comes down with the rush of a storm--

    And the angels, all pallid and wan,

      Uprising, unveiling, affirm

    That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"

      And its hero, the conqueror Worm.

"O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending her

arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of these

lines--"O God! O Divine Father!--shall these things be undeviatingly

so?--shall this conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part and

parcel in Thee? Who--who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its

vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, _nor unto death utterly_,

save only through the weakness of his feeble will."

And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white arms to

fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. And as she breathed her

last sighs, there came mingled with them a low murmur from her lips. I

bent to them my ear, and distinguished, again, the concluding words of

the passage in Glanvill: "_Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor

unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will._"

She died: and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, could no longer

endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in the dim and decaying

city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world calls wealth. Ligeia

had brought me far more, very far more, than ordinarily falls to the lot

of mortals. After a few months, therefore, of weary and aimless

wandering, I purchased and put in some repair, an abbey, which I shall

not name, in one of the wildest and least frequented portions of fair

England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost

savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy and time-honored

memories connected with both, had much in unison with the feelings of

utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote and unsocial

region of the country. Yet although the external abbey, with its verdant

decay hanging about it, suffered but little alteration, I gave way, with

a child-like perversity, and perchance with a faint hope of alleviating

my sorrows, to a display of more than regal magnificence within. For

such follies, even in childhood, I had imbibed a taste, and now they

came back to me as if in the dotage of grief. Alas, I feel how much even

of incipient madness might have been discovered in the gorgeous and

fantastic draperies, in the solemn carvings of Egypt, in the wild

cornices and furniture, in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets of tufted

gold! I had become a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my

labors and my orders had taken a coloring from my dreams. But these

absurdities I must not pause to detail. Let me speak only of that one

chamber, ever accursed, whither, in a moment of mental alienation, I led

from the altar as my bride--as the successor of the unforgotten

Ligeia--the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of

Tremaine.

There is no individual portion of the architecture and decoration of

that bridal chamber which is not visibly before me. Where were the souls

of the haughty family of the bride, when, through thirst of gold, they

permitted to pass the threshold of an apartment _so_ bedecked, a maiden

and a daughter so beloved? I have said, that I minutely remember the

details of the chamber--yet I am sadly forgetful on topics of deep

moment; and here there was no system, no keeping, in the fantastic

display to take hold upon the memory. The room lay in a high turret of

the castellated abbey, was pentagonal in shape, and of capacious size.

Occupying the whole southern face of the pentagonal was the sole

window--an immense sheet of unbroken glass from Venice--a single pane,

and tinted of a leaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun or moon

passing through it, fell with a ghastly luster on the objects within.

Over the upper portion of this huge window extended the trellis-work of

an aged vine, which clambered up the massy walls of the turret. The

ceiling, of gloomy-looking oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, and

elaborately fretted with the wildest and most grotesque specimens of a

semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device. From out the most central recess of

this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of gold with long

links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic in pattern, and with

many perforations so contrived that there writhed in and out of them, as

if endued with a serpent vitality, a continual succession of

parti-colored fires.

Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were in

various stations about; and there was the couch, too--the bridal

couch--of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony, with

a pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the chamber stood on

end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the kings

over against Luxor, with their aged lids full of immemorial sculpture.

But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas! the chief phantasy of

all. The lofty walls, gigantic in height--even unproportionably so--were

hung from summit to foot, in vast folds, with a heavy and

massive-looking tapestry--tapestry of a material which was found alike

as a carpet on the floor, as a covering for the ottomans and the ebony

bed, as a canopy for the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes of the

curtains which partially shaded the window. The material was the richest

cloth of gold. It was spotted all over, at irregular intervals, with

arabesque figures, about a foot in diameter, and wrought upon the cloth

in patterns of the most jetty black. But these figures partook of the

true character of the arabesque only when regarded from a single point

of view. By a contrivance now common, and indeed traceable to a very

remote period of antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one

entering the room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; but

upon a farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; and, step by

step, as the visitor moved his station in the chamber, he saw himself

surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which belong to

the superstition of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers of the

monk. The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the artificial

introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind the

draperies--giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.

In halls such as these--in a bridal chamber such as this--I passed, with

the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed hours of the first month of our

marriage--passed them with but little disquietude. That my wife dreaded

the fierce moodiness of my temper--that she shunned me, and loved me but

little--I could not help perceiving; but it gave me rather pleasure than

otherwise. I loathed her with a hatred belonging more to demon than to

man. My memory flew back (oh, with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia,

the beloved, the august, the beautiful, the entombed. I reveled in

recollections of her purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty--her ethereal

nature, of her passionate, her idolatrous love. Now, then, did my spirit

fully and freely burn with more than all the fires of her own. In the

excitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fettered in the

shackles of the drug), I would call aloud upon her name, during the

silence of the night, or among the sheltered recesses of the glens by

day, as if, through the wild eagerness, the solemn passion, the

consuming ardor of my longing for the departed, I could restore her to

the pathways she had abandoned--ah, _could_ it be forever?--upon the

earth.

About the commencement of the second month of the marriage, the Lady

Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which her recovery was

slow. The fever which consumed her rendered her nights uneasy; and in

her perturbed state of half-slumber, she spoke of sounds, and of

motions, in and about the chamber of the turret, which I concluded had

no origin save in the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in the

phantasmagoric influences of the chamber itself. She became at length

convalescent--finally, well. Yet but a second more violent disorder

again threw her upon a bed of suffering; and from this attack her frame,

at all times feeble, never altogether recovered. Her illnesses were,

after this epoch, of alarming character, and of more alarming

recurrence, defying alike the knowledge and the great exertions of her

physicians. With the increase of the chronic disease, which had thus,

apparently, taken too sure hold upon her constitution to be eradicated

by human means, I could not fail to observe a similar increase in the

nervous irritation of her temperament, and in her excitability by

trivial causes of fear. She spoke again, and now more frequently and

pertinaciously, of the sounds--of the slight sounds--and of the unusual

motions among the tapestries, to which she had formerly alluded.

One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed this

distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my attention. She

had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I had been watching, with

feelings half of anxiety, half of vague terror, the workings of her

emaciated countenance. I sat by the side of her ebony bed, upon one of

the ottomans of India. She partly arose, and spoke, in an earnest low

whisper, of sounds which she _then_ heard, but which I could not

hear--of motions which she _then_ saw, but which I could not perceive.

The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries, and I wished to

show her (what, let me confess it, I could not _all_ believe) that those

almost inarticulate breathings, and those very gentle variations of the

figures upon the wall, were but the natural effects of that customary

rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor, overspreading her face, had

proved to me that my exertions to reassure her would be fruitless. She

appeared to be fainting, and no attendants were within call. I

remembered where was deposited a decanter of light wine which had been

ordered by her physicians, and hastened across the chamber to procure

it. But, as I stepped beneath the light of the censer, two

circumstances of a startling nature attracted my attention. I had felt

that some palpable although invisible object had passed lightly by my

person; and I saw that there lay upon the golden carpet, in the very

middle of the rich luster thrown from the censer, a shadow--a faint,

indefinite shadow of angelic aspect--such as might be fancied for the

shadow of a shade. But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate

dose of opium, and heeded these things but little, nor spoke of them to

Rowena. Having found the wine, I recrossed the chamber, and poured out a

gobletful, which I held to the lips of the fainting lady. She had now

partially recovered, however, and took the vessel herself, while I sank

upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes fastened upon her person. It was

then that I became distinctly aware of a gentle footfall upon the

carpet, and near the couch; and in a second thereafter, as Rowena was in

the act of raising the wine to her lips, I saw, or may have dreamed that

I saw, fall within the goblet, as if from some invisible spring in the

atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops of a brilliant and

ruby colored fluid. If this I saw--not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine

unhesitatingly, and I forebore to speak to her of a circumstance which

must, after all, I considered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid

imagination, rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady, by the

opium, and by the hour.

Yet I cannot conceal [Transcriber's note: The original reads "coneal".]

it from my own perception that, immediately subsequent to the fall of

the ruby drops, a rapid change for the worse took place in the disorder

of my wife; so that, on the third subsequent night, the hands of her

menials prepared her for the tomb, and on the fourth, I sat alone, with

her shrouded body, in that fantastic chamber which had received her as

my bride. Wild visions, opium-engendered, flitted, shadow-like, before

me. I gazed with unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the

room, upon the varying figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of

the parti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I

called to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spot beneath

the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces of the shadow.

It was there, however, no longer; and breathing with greater freedom, I

turned my glances to the pallid and rigid figure upon the bed. Then

rushed upon me a thousand memories of Ligeia--and then came back upon my

heart, with the turbulent violence of a flood, the whole of that

unutterable woe with which I had regarded _her_ thus enshrouded. The

night waned; and still, with a bosom full of bitter thoughts of the one

only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon the body of Rowena.

It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I had

taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very distinct,

startled me from my revery. I _felt_ that it came from the bed of

ebony--the bed of death. I listened in an agony of superstitious

terror--but there was no repetition of the sound. I strained my vision

to detect any motion in the corpse--but there was not the slightest

perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I _had_ heard the

noise, however faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I resolutely

and perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body. Many minutes

elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending to throw light upon the

mystery. At length it became evident that a slight, a very feeble, and

barely noticeable tinge of color had flushed up within the cheeks, and

along the sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species of

unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortality has no

sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my heart cease to beat, my

limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of duty finally operated to

restore my self-possession. I could no longer doubt that we had been

precipitate in our preparations--that Rowena still lived. It was

necessary that some immediate exertion be made; yet the turret was

altogether apart from the portion of the abbey tenanted by the

servants--there were none within call--I had no means of summoning them

to my aid without leaving the room for many minutes--and this I could

not venture to do. I therefore struggled alone in my endeavors to call

back the spirit still hovering. In a short period it was certain,

however, that a relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both

eyelid and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the

lips became doubly shriveled and pinched up in the ghastly expression of

death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the

surface of the body; and all the usual rigorous stiffness immediately

supervened. I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had

been so startlingly aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate

waking visions of Ligeia.

An hour thus elapsed, when (could it be possible?) I was a second time

aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the bed. I

listened--in extremity of horror. The sound came again--it was a sigh.

Rushing to the corpse, I saw--distinctly saw--a tremor upon the lips. In

a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a bright line of the pearly

teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom with the profound awe which

had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt that my vision grew dim, that

my reason wandered; and it was only by a violent effort that I at length

succeeded in nerving myself to the task which duty thus once more had

pointed out. There was now a partial glow upon the forehead and upon the

cheek and throat; a perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame; there

was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The lady _lived_; and with

redoubled ardor I betook myself to the task of restoration. I chafed and

bathed the temples and the hands and used every exertion which

experience, and no little medical reading, could suggest. But in vain.

Suddenly, the color fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the

expression of the dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body

took upon itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense

rigidity, the sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of

that which has been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb.

And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia--and again (what marvel that I

shudder while I write?), _again_ there reached my ears a low sob from

the region of the ebony bed. But why shall I minutely detail the

unspeakable horrors of that night? Why shall I pause to relate how, time

after time, until near the period of the gray dawn, this hideous drama

of revivification was repeated; how each terrific relapse was only into

a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death; how each agony wore

the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe; and how each struggle

was succeeded by I know not what of wild change in the personal

appearance of the corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion.

The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who had

been dead once again stirred--and now more vigorously than hitherto,

although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in its utter

hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or to move, and

remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a helpless prey to a whirl

of violent emotions, of which extreme awe was perhaps the least

terrible, the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now

more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with unwonted

energy into the countenance--the limbs relaxed--and, save that the

eyelids were yet pressed heavily together, and that the bandages and

draperies of the grave still imparted their charnel character to the

figure, I might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off, utterly,

the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not, even then, altogether

adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when, arising from the bed,

tottering, with feeble steps, with closed eyes, and with the manner of

one bewildered in a dream, the thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly

and palpably into the middle of the apartment.

I trembled not--I stirred not--for a crowd of unutterable fancies

connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor, of the figure,

rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed--had chilled me into

stone. I stirred not--but gazed upon the apparition. There was a mad

disorder in my thoughts--a tumult unappeasable. Could it, indeed, be the

_living_ Rowena who confronted me? Could it, indeed, be Rowena _at

all_--the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine?

Why, _why_ should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about the

mouth--but then might it not be the mouth of the breathing Lady of

Tremaine? And the cheeks--there were the roses as in her noon of

life--yes, these might indeed be the fair cheeks of the living Lady of

Tremaine. And the chin, with its dimples, as in health, might it not be

hers?--but _had she then grown taller since her malady?_ What

inexpressible madness seized me with that thought? One bound, and I had

reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her head,

unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and there

streamed forth into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber huge masses of

long and disheveled hair; _it was blacker than the raven wings of

midnight._ And now slowly opened _the eyes_ of the figure which stood

before me. "Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I never--can I

never be mistaken--these are the full, and the black, and the wild

eyes--of my lost love--of the Lady--of the LADY LIGEIA."